Last month we reported that worldwide smartphone shipment touched quarter billion mark in Q3 of 2013. Now, new reports are saying that mobile handset shipment in India totaled 62.9 million in Q3, 2013, resulting in 10.9% Y-O-Y growth. The latest finding from CyberMedia Research (CMR) reveals that smartphone shipments in India touched 11.1 million units in Q3, 2013, an astounding 152.3% growth compared to the year ago quarter.

As smartphones continue to capture consumer interest, sales of feature phones, which drove mobile phone adoption in India, fell for the first time by 0.8 per cent to 51.8 million units in July-September 2013 , said the report. “This means vendors can expect to see large opportunities in the upgrades market where many feature phone users will upgrade to a smartphone. It may also so happen that new smartphone purchases register lower volumes vis-à-vis upgrades. But this phenomenon may be a few quarters away. So there is going to be a huge opportunity as well as competition in the entry- to mid-level smartphone segments, which is where the volumes would remain for a while”, Faisal Kawoosa, Lead Analyst, CMR Telecoms Practice said in the official report.

In Q3, 2013 smartphone contributed 55% of total mobile handsets shipments globally, while India’s contribution remained 17.6%. Despite poor performance in smartphone segment, Nokia secured its top position by controlling 18.9% of total mobile handsets market due extensive reach of its feature phones. However, Samsung continued to top the Indian smartphone market with 33.9% of share in Q3 followed by local vendors Micromax and Karbonn with 19.7% and 9.5%, respectively.

“The India smartphones market continues to be a competitive space with close to brands vying with each other.Going forward, we expect this segment to be even more competitive as we expect some of the China-based ODM partners entering directly into the India market during H1 2014,” CMR Telecoms Practice Analyst Tarun Pathak said. He further observed that that local handset brands have now close to 47% market share in the Indian smartphones market.

Image Credits | CMR

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Mobile companies seem to be realizing the boundless opportunities mobile advertising offers. Tata Teleservices seems to have gone a step ahead by incentivizing the mobile advertising pathway to boost its own revenues and ensure its subscribers gain too.

Tata Tel has tied-up with a few companies to show their ads on the mobile screens of its subscribers in lieu of free–talk-time. The company will launch the service in partnership with mAdcall Pvt. Ltd, a sister concern of Astute Systems. Christened 'GET', it is essentially a mobile advertising application that will be available on the GSM as well as CDMA networks (Docomo and Indicom brands). It is compatible with Android, Java, Symbian and Blackberry. The application can also be accessed over Wi-Fi and Tata Docomo internet.

How does the monetization technique work?
Mobile advertising has traditionally been a free burden for the subscriber. He or she wasn't entitled to earn anything, but the Digital Advertisers managed to earn good revenue from targeted advertising. However, Tata Tel has sought to share some of that revenue with its subscribers.

With over 63 Million users across India, Tata Tel has a golden opportunity to ensure its subscribers willingly download the application with the perceived benefit of earning free talk–time, shared a company official, "Users will be offered free voice minute, per advertisement viewed on their Docomo data enabled handset, for both pre-and post-pay customers."

Interestingly, the mobile data consumed while the ad is downloaded and viewed will not be chargeable either. Additionally, to ensure the advertisement is watched completely, the streaming has been optimized to avoid any sort of buffering, a problem more common than previously imagined.

Once the ad is watched completely, "Users will be instantly rewarded with one minute of local or national talk-time [for each advertisement viewed],” added the official.

Mobile advertising is certainly a promising venture for all the parties involved. However, the segment is registering a very fast growth which could cause user–fatigue. Moreover, Tata Tel will have to ensure the ads are of short duration. It shouldn't happen that a subscriber is subjected to a long advertising for just a minute of talk–time. What do you think?

Image Source | Business Insider

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Mumbai based Saylee Kaluskar has come up with a genius idea of pairing sunglasses with solar power to charge your smartphone. The Indian origin US based art designer has turned a pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses into a smartphone charging device by adding solar panels to them. The device is a product of student’s project at Miami Ad School – San Francisco. Kaluskar worked with Ramiro Ramirez on the project as part of their student work.

The Ray-Ban Shama Shades comes with two solar panels at the side arms of the shades that allows the sunglasses to harness solar energy during the day. At night, these arms can be detached and be used to charge mobile phones. The arms of the iconic Ray Ban Wayfarer shades boast of photovoltaic cells wired to a battery hidden within the plastic. The cells charge the battery while you are wearing your glasses in the sun and when once you take them off, the arms can be detached to reveal a microUSB or Lightening connector that plug into your phone.

It is great to see that designers are coming forward with a device that uses solar energy. The shades are currently just a concept, but it’s certainly a highly practical one, as well as an eco, tech and overall forward-thinking fashion statement. The Ray-Ban Shama Shades project can be an inspiration to a large number of budding designers who can use natural resources appropriately.

Image Source | Crazy Engineers

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Samsung's Galaxy Gear smartwatch companion to the Galaxy Note 3 was launched some months back. It was a highly anticipated device, given the fact that it was the first implementation of a smartwatch. Samsung beat competitors like Google, Apple and others to launch the device first. However, it seems this hurry might have costed them. Many reviewers and consumer criticized the device because it couldn't do much and was rather expensive.

While definitely innovative, many felt that the price did not justify the lack of compelling features. In fact, later reports stated that this first major wearable device may have been a dud with only 50,000 devices being sold. There was also some news of customers returning the Galaxy Gear because it was not useful enough. This must be devastating for a company which is completely focusing on showing the world its innovation. Samsung has been criticized before failing to be innovative and Apple's suit against the company has left them with a bad image which the company has resolved to repair.

Today in response to criticisms of poor sales, Samsung has released numbers about Galaxy Gear. The company claims that Galaxy Gear is definitely the world's most popular smartwatch, with sales reaching 800,000 over a span of two months. These official figures compared to the 50,000 figure given earlier, shows that the device may definitely have been successful, even though market perception about it has been overwhelmingly negative. There seems to be some confusion over the 800,000 figure though. While Reuters reports that Samsung has sold 800,000 devices, Korean publication Yonhap says that the number is indicative of the total number of devices shipped to retailers instead of sales. While there is no clarification yet, it does seem that the number given by Samsung must refer to the devices shipped.

Source | Reuters

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Indians are increasingly consuming multimedia content, especially video on their mobile screens. However, at the back–end, telecom companies are struggling extensively to meet the increasing demand. Such scale–up of critical services has resulted in user frustration and drop in consumer satisfaction.

According to a recently concluded study by Skyfire, a cloud-based mobile video-optimization company, more than half (56%) of the mobile subscribers on India's telecom networks are suffering from elementary video issues like routine and significant stagnation and re-buffering. Technically referred to as 'Significant Stalling’, it is defined as a video that stalls or buffers more than 10% of its overall playback time. Eventually it results in users abandoning the hope of watching the video and end up switching off the video being played.

Skyfire collated its global data on mobile video network loads with long–term bandwidth test data from wireless network authority OpenSignal, using recent data from 2013 on India's networks.

Are India's networks so bad?
Shockingly, the aforementioned rudimentary issues are faced on supposedly faster 3G Network. In all, 83% of users on 3G, experience at least some stalling while trying to watch video. This means more than 8 out of 10 people are currently facing issues playing videos on their mobile devices despite paying higher tariff to access the allegedly faster 3G network.

This is a great cause of concern not only to content generators and publishers, but to the telecom companies as well. While YouTube rewards more to people whose videos are watched till the end, contributors even have the ability to insert more ads (and earn more) at the beginning, middle and end of a lengthy video. However, none should be more concerned than the telecom companies. Data Streams are by far the fastest growing segment. Subscribers are enthusiastically watching and consuming content on the mobile screens. Additionally, though the content is myriad in nature, it still requires a robust and reliable high–speed connection. Furthermore, these very telecom companies are facing heavy reductions in their traditional revenue streams, i.e. Voice and SMS.

According to Cisco's 2013 Visual Networking Index, mobile data traffic in India is projected to reach a mind–boggling 900 Petabytes Per Month by 2017, with 60% of that data coming from mobile video alone. Considering the magnitude, it appears MTNL is the only company to have realized the need to augment its data network. What do you think?

Image Source | Indian Express

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